6

Preparing for the
Vice Presidential Debate

Mike Tompkins is talking and pacing. Talking and pacing. He stops to think, picks a few grapes out of a bowl, and then resumes his talking and pacing. He paces across the kitchen where I am sitting at a breakfast table. Out the door into the dining room. Across to the living room, and back around through a swinging door into the kitchen. Tompkins has to leave the house in less than 20 minutes for the third-party vice presidential debate that is being held at American University in Washington, D.C., and he is doing some last-minute fine-tuning of his answers. His target response: 60 seconds, informative, punchy, to the point.

I throw out a question, the second hand sweeps across my watch. Too long, I say, when he goes past the minute mark; you have another five seconds I say when he stops short.

This is Tompkins' first foray into nationally televised (CSPAN) debates. Hagelin has already done five or six on CNN and CSPAN. Tompkins-who has spent much of the past four years on the road building the party, recruiting candidates, speaking on college campuses, and doing lots and lots of local media interviews-is pumped. He'll be debating Jo Jorgenson of the Libertarian Party and Herb Titus of the U.S. Taxpayers Party. The event is sponsored by the American University Student Union and will be moderated by Alan Lichtman, American University professor of history and one of the most respected political analysts in the country.

Health care, I say to Tompkins:

"We boast that we have the world's best health care system, certainly the most costly, but our health statistics are among the worst in the developed world. Fifty percent or more of our disease is preventable, self-inflicted by our own unhealthy behaviors. We spend only 1% of our health care dollars on prevention, and yet we are mystified that there has been a 39% increase in infectious diseases in recent years. We can incorporate right now cost-effective, natural, prevention-oriented health care programs shown by extensive scientific research to prevent disease and promote health and thereby reduce health care costs by more than fifty percent."

Special interests: "Partisan politics and special interests have taken priority over the good of the nation. Our approach is an "all-party government"-bringing together the best ideas, programs, and leaders from all political parties and the private sector to solve and prevent problems. We also support essential campaign finance reform to eliminate special interest control of government. In addition, we advocate an end to negative campaigning, which demeans the political process and relegates important social and economic issues to the back burner. "

Food and agriculture: "Our agriculture is a great triumph, we can feed the world, but for how long and at what cost? In this century, half our topsoils have blown away in the winds of our own neglect, and now agrochemicals are poisoning our water, polluting our foods, sterilizing our soils, and spawning a greater demand for genetically engineered seeds the consequences of which on the global food supply are entirely unknown and very likely catastrophic. The Natural Law Party supports natural, sustainable agricultural practices proven to produce healthy, high quality food grown without hazardous chemical fertilizers and pesticides. At the same time, these practices preserve the environment for future generations."

Energy and the environment: "Every year we load a ton-a ton-of hazardous waste onto the earth for every man, woman, and child in our country. We're running out of places to put it, no one wants it, so we export it to other, less fortunate lands, as we export the chemical fertilizers and pesticides we have outlawed here in our own country. We need to put into place renewable energy production and energy conservation practices that are shown to be environmentally clean and cost-effective."

Education: "We Americans say that we are a country of education-everyone in America can get an education, grow up, and become Vice President. Right? Yes, spending on education has jumped 126% in the last ten years, but test scores have plummeted. Several years ago we actually downgraded the SAT scale, establishing a lower mean, because our children's scores had been consistently declining over the years. We can improve education through programs that develop the inner creative genius of the student. Research shows that these programs increase I.Q., improve learning ability and moral reasoning, and decrease substance abuse."

Foreign policy: "The U.S. is the largest arms dealer in the world. We confront our own weapons in Somalia, Bosnia, Desert Storm. We are sowing the seeds of resentment and hate all around the world. No wonder we are a principal target of terrorism. We must shift our foreign policy away from export of weapons toward a more life-supporting policy based on the export of U.S. know-how in business and entrepreneurship, education, and agricultural and environmental technologies. Then we will make friends in the world, not enemies."

Tompkins stops pacing and sits down at the table. We have to leave in just a few minutes. He reviews his opening three-minute speech, reading notes from index cards. You better memorize that, I say, pointing to the words on the cards. You may not be able to have notes. You'll be stuck. (No truer words were spoken during the campaign.) But there's no time to spare. Tompkins has just come in to Washington from three full days of campaigning in the Midwest and hasn't had a moment to pull everything together.

The debate is being held in a large chapel on campus. Ten minutes before airtime the rows are filled with several hundred students, camera crews, and some print journalists. There's a photo shoot of the three VP candidates at two minutes before eight, and then everyone takes their places behind the podiums. Tompkins is doing a last second scan of the index cards. No more than 15 seconds before Professor Lichtman is to give his welcome comments, a student organizer slides across the stage and asks Tompkins to put his cards away. He hesitates for a split-second but then puts them on a shelf inside the podium and casts a quick smile in my direction. The television cameras roll and he doesn't forget a thing.

Here is how Mike Tompkins opens the debate:

"I stand to represent Dr. John Hagelin and the hundreds of candidates of the Natural Law Party who are on the ballot in 48 states and also here in the District of Columbia. One question we are often asked is, Why do you call it the Natural Law Party? Well, before the Republicans, before the Democrats, before all the other political parties there was natural law. One of the founders of our country, John Adams, called natural law 'the Great Legislator of the Universe.' And in the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, in the very beginning of the document, derived our very existence as a country and also all our rights from what he called the 'laws of nature.'

"So what is natural law? It is the order, the intelligence in the universe. It governs everything, from our bodies to the larger world environment. Our founders believed that if we could gain knowledge of natural law, of how it operates both inside us and all around us, then we would grow as individuals and also as a nation. In fact, it's when we violate the laws of nature that we create our problems. But when we are able to live in accord with natural law then we meet with success and fulfillment in life.

"Let me give an example. In health care, if I don't look after my body, if I don't eat properly, don't rest properly, if I abuse alcohol and drugs, I compromise my immune system and I fall sick. And in fact, more than 50 percent of illness in this country results because of violations of natural law. Well, if we can learn how to prevent illness simply by keeping our immune system strong, then we have the solution to many of the problems of our health care system. To give people the knowledge and incentive to do this is to practice preventive government.

"Government's approach to solving problems has always been superficial. It's been an "outside-in" approach. Look at crime. The outside-in approach to reducing crime is all about prisons, gun control, capital punishment, mandatory sentencing. It's about how to impose law on ourselves from outside. But what about preventing crime by connecting people to the source of law inside themselves-natural law? People become spontaneously law-abiding. Again, look at our health care system. The outside-in approach is all about financing and delivery of disease care services. The "inside-out" approach emphasizes prevention-strengthening the immune system from within and empowering people to take better care of their own health. This is something everyone can support-both liberals and conservatives alike: liberals because prevention improves the health of the people; conservatives because it does that and it saves money. Solving problems at their basis through preventive solutions satisfies everyone.

"The Natural Law Party has built a broad platform of many scientifically proven solutions, a platform where the whole of America can stand together comfortably and share a strong, common political voice. You will see that, yes, we are for preventive medicine and sustainable agriculture and renewable energy and energy conservation and consciousness-based education and preventive criminal justice and more socially responsible business and industry and sound economic policy and political reform and all of that.

"But most important, we are for government that works from the inside-out, for awakening ourselves to our true identity as Americans rooted in natural law. In this way we become self-governing individuals and a self-governing society living spontaneously in accord with natural law. The result will be a healthier, more prosperous, more richly diverse, and yet more harmonious, prosperous nation for us all. This is the commitment of the Natural Law Party."